Genius
by Akilika Q
Summary: People say Mar built Haven City, the shield wall system and the Eco grid long ago. Mar's legacy is clear, but can Jak live up to something like that? Spoilers for Jak II and 3.


"It must be amazing, learning that you're the greatest hero of all time." Keira glanced up from the Zoomer she was working on and smiled. "Not that it's a huge step up for you, but it still must really be something."

Jak shrugged. "I don't really think about it much," he said. It was true enough--while he thought a great deal about being Mar, son of Damas, being the folk hero of Haven never really came into it. It was too distant to be a concern.

But Keira continued anyway. "It must be frightening, too . . . everyone expects so much from you. Building the eco grid and everything. Complex stuff. I mean, I've been working on Eco stuff since I was ten and I _still_ wouldn't want that on my shoulders."

"Eh." He shrugged again. "I'll figure it out when the time comes."

There was an immediate, stark silence in response; Jak got the feeling he'd said something wrong.

"You'll figure it out," Keira finally said, as though she couldn't quite believe what she'd heard.

It made him a little defensive. "Why not?" he asked. "It's worked so far."

She sighed. "Jak . . . what you've been doing so far is beating up bad guys. And you're good at that! But engineering is different."

Jak raised an eyebrow. "You don't think I can do it?" He wouldn't have, either--why would he want to?--but the fact that Mar managed made the truth of the matter clear enough to him.

Either Keira hadn't thought of it that way, or it wasn't good enough for her. She straightened from her work and crossed her arms. "Have you ever tried to make anything mechanical?"

"No."

"Have you ever broken anything apart to see how it worked?"

"I've broken stuff . . ."

"Do you have the _slightest_ idea of how eco actually works?"

"I think I've channeled enough of it."

Keira sighed and shook her head. "You don't know what you're getting into," she said. "Econetic engineering requires a _very_ good idea of how to do things, and it takes _years_ to learn it all."

"Well, it's a good thing I have years." One of Jak's ears twitched; he was starting to get annoyed.

Again, she didn't accept this; she raised an eyebrow at him. "You really think you can learn this without trying."

"Mar did it." He thought that was answer enough.

A small smirk, and she leaned forward on the Zoomer. "Tell you what," she said. "Take _one_ class, then come back here and tell me if you still feel the same way."

The look of horror was on Jak's face before he could stop it; there wasn't really a point to hiding it, anyway. "No," he said; "you know I don't do well with classes."

"You do fine, Jak. My father just liked to be hard on you." Keira rolled her eyes. "But this is the only way you're going to prove to me that you actually can pick up engineering on your own."

Jak raised an eyebrow of his own. "Why do I have to prove anything to you?"

"Because I can get Ashelin on my side."

Her smugness was grating, but Jak suspected she was right. And if she did that . . .

He shuddered. "Fine," he said. "_One_ lesson. But where exactly do you think I'll find a teacher?" Keira was out of the question; the end of the war meant that more people were spending money on custom Zoomers and races, and that meant more work for her; she seldom had time even for these meetings. Samos was busy, too, but Jak had other reasons not to go to him.

But she had an answer: "I'm sure Vin wouldn't mind the company." Still smug. Of course.

"Fine," Jak said, "I'll go see Vin. And I'll prove I can learn this on my own."

"Sure thing, Jak," said Keira. It sounded like she was trying not to laugh.

* * *

"So what's this thingy do?"

"_Don't touch that!_"

It wasn't hard to make Vin panic, but Daxter seemed to have a knack for it; in any case, the Ottsel didn't manage to hit the button in question before the terminal locked itself. "Do you have any idea how much damage you could do?" the man (. . . former man) spouted.

Jak had been surprised when Daxter had offered to come to the power center with him; Dax had hated Samos' lessons at least twice as much as Jak had. But Jak would be lying if he were to say he didn't appreciate having his friend with him. Mostly.

Dax smirked. "Relax, bit-brain--we've got a knack for this stuff. Right, Jak?"

But Vin shook his holographic representation of a head, eyebrows furrowed. "This isn't like the Precursor stuff you're used to dealing with," he said. "Not even close!"

Daxter started to snort, but Jak thought it sounded like as good of an opening as any. "What's the difference?" he said.

"You mean besides ten thousand years and a few giant gaps of technological development? There's absolutely _no_ comparison," said Vin. "But the important thing in this case is that the Precursors made a new artifact for every task--you _can't_ screw those up, because each artifact is only designed to do one thing. And very well, I might add." His expression changed from a relative calm to his standard, overreactive demeanor. "But we can't afford to do that! So each of our machines--each of these computers does hundreds, thousands of things! And each one is tied to the next."

Jak blinked. "What?"

"If you poke around on these things without knowing what you're doing, you could theoretically bring down the entire network! Skew all the signals, wipe all your data . . ."

The boy continued to stare.

"KABOOM!" Vin finished, finally.

"Come on," said Jak, "I'm sure--"

"Besides, you're not here to learn how to use these. You won't have computers when you go back to be Mar, oh, no!" His head rose to rest beside a mounted screen, which immediately displayed what looked like a slide show presentation. "You gotta learn how to _build_ these. Which brings us to basic Eco theory."

"Oh, God! It's like being with ol' Green Grubs all over again!" Daxter slapped his hand to his head dramatically.

"Vin, we already know this," said Jak. "Blue Eco makes things go fast, red makes you strong, yellow shoots fireballs, green heals, and dark destroys. Simple."

"Yes," Vin said, "but do you know _how_ it does that?"

". . . you channel it . . ."

"_Wrong!_" A bunch of text crawled onto the screen, but Vin was talking again before Jak could start to read it. "If that were true, you'd have to have a line of people instead of wires between your machines, and _that_ is a waste of manpower. Besides . . ."

"Oh God," Daxter reiterated.

He furrowed his brow. "Anyway, all that comes later. Fireballs are useless for running machines, right? So you've got to understand what _causes_ it to let people shoot fireballs."

Jak had to consciously keep himself from rolling his eyes. "So how's that?"

"That's a good question." Vin turned toward his presentation, and his voice took the tone of someone who had practiced exactly what he wanted to say. "Basically, all Eco is the same at its core, in that--"

"Yeah, yeah, we know," said Daxter. "Precursor essence. We've already heard this lecture, buddy-boy, so . . ."

"What?" Vin shook his head. "No, I was gonna say that it's a whole lot of tiny particles, all bouncing off each other at super-fast speed!"

Again, Jak blinked.

"Anyway, so these tiny particles are bouncing off of each other, right?" A moving image of a bunch of circles bouncing off of each other in a tube superimposed itself over the text on the screen. "And what's _really_ special about it is that they like sharing with, well, pretty much everything. And, _because_ it's all so energetic, they can push the parts of themselves they give away very well--if you manage to get it all going in one direction." A clip-art magnet appeared at one end of the tube, although the movement of the circles didn't seem to change any. "That's where--"

"What does this have to do with anything?" interrupted Jak. He could already feel a headache start to form behind his temples.

It was Vin's turn to blink--invisible, of course, behind his projected lenses, but clear all the same. "_Everything!_" he said after the pause. "See, that's what makes it go through _you_, and what makes it go through power lines. Here, let me pull up my next diagram . . ."

"Wonderful," muttered Daxter. Jak didn't say anything at all.

* * *

"Can you believe him?" said Daxter. "At least Green Stuff was able to stick to one subject!"

Three hours had passed since they'd gone into the power center--Jak had only planned for one, but he'd insisted on staying, getting things explained again and again.

It hadn't worked.

"I mean, come on, I don't think the Precursors could have followed his train of thought if they had a map! How's anyone supposed to learn anything like that?"

Finally, Daxter seemed to start to notice Jak's lack of a response; he glanced down from his puffed-up pose on Jak's shoulder.

"Aw, come on, don't let it get you down," he said, relaxing into a crouch. "You've been listening to what I've been saying, right? No one could have learned from that!"

"I should have."

Dax snorted. "Why, because you're Mar? Jak, get over it. Even you can't be good at everything."

"But I _should_ be good at this!" Jak glared. "Mar--_I_ managed to . . . he was a genius at this. And if I'm not . . ."

Daxter didn't reply for a few moments. When he did, it was in an uncharacteristically even tone.

"The way I see it," he said, "you've got two choices.

"One, you can _really_ work your ass off for years to learn all the stuff that Vin does. You've got it in you, believe me; you can actually be pretty smart once you realize that you don't know everything."

Jak found the backhanded compliment less than endearing; he glared. "What's the other option?"

"Let someone else do it."

". . . what?"

Daxter grinned smugly. "You remember when Samos was teaching us about folk stories? 'Oral tradition' or some bull like that--I was so glad to be off of mathematics that I actually remembered some of it. Like, there was this really cool story about this girl with _gigantic_--"

"Daxter," Jak warned.

"Right. Anyway, he said that when a story's been passed down long enough, details'll all get messed up. People get stronger, faster, smarter . . ."

"But Haven City exists," interrupted Jak. "How can that be exaggerated?"

"Maybe _you_ didn't build it, buddy-boy!" Daxter grinned and poked Jak's nose. "Maybe you brought Keira back, and _she_ did all the work. Or maybe it was Samos. Even Vin. But everyone is talking about how awesome Mar is . . ."

Jak was barely aware of his Zoomer as he reached it. "You mean I won't have to build Haven City . . .?"

"Maybe you will, and maybe you won't," said Daxter. "But considering that it's already been built . . . I wouldn't worry too much about it."

It made sense. Perfect sense. And it fit in his head a way that Eco theory never had. Jak smiled, suddenly feeling as though a huge weight were gone. "Thanks, Dax," he said.

"No problem, pal," the Ottsel said. "Though, by way of thanks, do you think you could drive a reasonable speed for once? I mean, I'd like to _survive_ saving history long enough to get a just reward from my lady . . ."

Jak only laughed.


End file.
